It's June?

Not exactly updating twice a week, but hopefully you will be satisfied with the below posts.

News from Bermuda:

I will be at sea at least every month for 6 days until February 2010. For 2009, I will probably have spent 3 months at sea. Wild.

Working out in the morning is going “well”. I have probably lost a couple pounds and have put on between 1 and 35 lbs of pure muscle.

My bike is fixed.

My boat is about to be fixed. X. Those are fingers being crossed. In the form of an x.

Other thoughts:

Lebron is going to the Knicks. Varejao will no longer have a reason to be in the NBA.

Scalabrine is above and beyond my favorite player in the NBA.

Wings in 6. Damn they’re playing good. I’m surprised there hasn’t been a lot of talk about the absence of Datsyuk.

I will be home probably August 11. If anyone has any ideas for reconnecting past memories between August 16 and August 27th, I will be happy to support them.

Great Travel Spots

I saw this on CNN's home page. The link read as "Most Dangerous Countries: These countries market themselves aggresively as tourist destinations. But is the risk worth the trip?" After I list the countries they tell you to stay away from, you'll probably think the same as me..."Who the hell would want to go to these countries?"

Each slide has the "allure" for each destination. I will share.

1. Pakistan. Are you serious? This place is invested with Al-qaeda and Taliban. WHY WOULD ANYONE CHOOSE THIS AS A VACATION? Travel Leisure I am beginning to hate you.

2. Sudan. "The Allure: Dip your toes into the confluence of the Blue Nile and White Nile." Can't I see the Nile in Egypt. And doesn't Egypt not contain a place, named Darfur. If your idea of leisure vacation is 6 months of volunteering for malaria than this is the place for you.

3. Georgia. The Allure: ..."described as the Alps meet the Mediterranean, offering everything from winery tours to heli-skiing." When you're surrounded by Russian tanks. Relaxing!

4. Lebanon. Sounds too close to Lebron. Definitely avoid this place.

5. North Korea. You've got to be kidding me.

6. Syria. Warning: "...The past decade alone has seen car bombs, assassinations, an attack on the U.S. Embassy, and violent anti-Western demonstrations." Syriously, no.

7. Yemen. I don't know about a lot of these countries and I especially don't know much about Yemen, but I'd decline based on the high heat and not that a group of tourists were killed in 2008.

8. Uzbekistan. "The Allure: Travel the ancient Silk Road cities of Khiva, Bukhara, and Samarkand. Go on camel treks in the desert and visit historic mosques." Ooooooohhhh, sounds so alluring.

9. Iran. Actually Travel Leisure, I don't see this as a terrible vacation choice. Definitely not one I would choose, but I'm not going to rag.

10. Algeria. Allure: "...Camel-treking..." Almost every single one of these locales has camel treking as an allure. Horse riding sucks. I can't imagine having that transfered over to a bitter, angry animal in plus 100 degree heat. These people are nuts.

11. Afghanistan. Allure: "Tombs(Egypt), historic teahouses(No), ancient market towns(Suicide bombers), and the country’s first national park(Dirt)". Unfortunately, the parenthenthesis is not part of the quoted text. Also, I spelled parenthenthesis without spellcheck.

12. Eritrea. Eerily similar to Urethra.

13. Zibabwe. Victoria Falls and Hwange National Park, those are legitimate allures. But, I would avoid("...the State Department lifted its travel warning on April 8, 2009, because there was a return of basic medical, food, and fuel services.", THANKS TRAVEL LEISURE!

14. Burma. Earlier this week I actually said to someone, "I want to travel to Southeast Asia...Burma, Indonesia, Thailand." Apparently, Burma is a cash society(No credit cards, ATMs). They must make it rain allllll the time over there. With bullets.

15. Iraq. Only if I get a exclusive tour by Saddam. Which I hear he might booked for a while. BY SATAN. Ha!

Chili Peppers Redubbed

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Under The Bridge: Literal Video Version - watch more funny videos

Hilarious. I hope this is the first time everybody has seen this. It gives me much more satisfaction when I present something "fresh".

Back in Black

I don't know why I've titled this Back in Black. Black has nothing to do with anything I've seen or been apart of in the past month. But I am "BACK". It has actually been a month since I've updated. Thanks to Joe, it was called to my attention. Of course, I haven't forgotten about this blog, but it always gets put off or there's something else of higher priority. Now here I am again, thinking about how long this blog post will be. Now I'm sure many of you want to know how the trip went and pretty much all my responses to people in Bermuda have been quite short.

"How was the cruise?"
"Good. Pretty long, but good. Cold and icy as you imagine."
"Ah, well that's good. Nice to have you back."

That's it. Now, a lot of these people have been on cruises and basically know exactly what goes on, exactly how you feel during week 1, 2, 3, and so on. So I'm going to spare you of the 38 day narrative on my trip in all its glory and break it down into a few categories. Enjoy.

Things that were exciting:
-Departure. Very cool to be on such a massive boat, leaving Artic Islands.
-Artic Wildlife. Seals were very cool to see, Walrus were fat slobs. Bald eagle is the most badass animal around. Besides Sharks. Also I tamed a Wild Horse. I think one of them wanted to get busy too. One of the girls was petting it's nose and all of a sudden I see this lurking, growing monster on the horse. She stopped petting then I noticed the horse suddenly got a lot smaller. That horse is a sick freak, I stayed the hell away from all of them after that nonsense.
-Small boat and sediment traps. Instead of the usual badassness of a hardhat on deck, I get to wear a helmet, sweet vest, buoyant suit, while cruising in the Bering Sea. Legitimate discovery channel shit.

Things that were surprising:
-I can survive without Alcohol for 38days.

Things that were disappointing:
-I didn't have alcohol for 38 days.
-No Polar Bears. Which means, no pictures of Doug on a Polar Bear.

Things that were good:
-Awesome boat.
-Pretty good food.
-Majority freindly, good scientists.
-Being part of a project based on Climate Change and seeing the project as a whole.

Things that were annoying:
-I didn't get to see any fueds between scientists. I was really hoping for some tension.
-Being on a boat 6 week straight does get old. You eventually get tired of a lot of things.

Things that occurred in Bermuda while away:
-My boat's trim motor broke.
-My bike's drive belt snapped. Well, not exactly while I was away, but first few miles riding it, it snapped. I was letting someone ride it while I was gone.
-It is HOT. You can feel the humidity rising. Bringing back those nice memories of lacrosse camps and the amount of sweating at them.
-Water is warmed up. This happens when air temperature rises. The air temperature rises due to the increase in sunlight. The increase in sunlight is due to both the angle and the amount of daytime. Water will actually cool down, during the night, when there is no sun. I've returned a scientist.
-It hasn't rained in about a month. It drizzled for maybe 5 minutes this evening, but that's not rain. Well, it is....but not really. Kind of like how Vin Diseal is an actor.

I'm guessing a lot of you may have broken screens from getting frusterated and yelling "DOUG WHERE ARE FREAKING PICTURES....RAAARRGGGHH." I'm thinking about putting together an album through pixtera, but basically all of you are on Facebook and can see them there. I've got one more album to put up and a few others photos that are not taken by me, obviously seen by the quality of a non-toy camera.

As I've said many, many times, I'd like to get back in the swing of things with at least weekly updates. But, I'm guessing like all of you, we're all pretty busy and it's tough to allocate time to basically talk about myself.

One last note. I've geared myself into getting fit. This came to be from three reasons. One, seeing the Michigan Lacrosse team win a National Championship and everybody is fit/jacked and remembered being that way. Except for the whole jacked part and maybe throw mildly in front of "fit". Either way, I thought I need to be more healthy. Less binge drinking nights at the wind. More responsibility. I am getting lamer by the sentence. The second reason is a friend has started training for a triathalon, while getting a PhD. All I do is drink beer and play soccer. Again, need to be more healthy. The third reason is Bermuda Lacrosse. We have a "tryout" with a few coaches for our National Team in a few weeks. Which as of Sunday, is now considered an Official National Sport in Bermuda...pretty cool. So, we've got a few more of these practices and I want to actually be in good shape, ready to play, get the skills back, and somehow lead by example in fitness and effort. I'd really, really like to make a run at winning the lower tier championship in the World Games.

So far it's been 3 days. I wake up an hour and a half before work. How fucked up is that. I go for a quick run along an ocean trail, followed by a jump and swim in our bay. The swim in the bay is actually neccessary, because my boat's bilge pump motor stopped working and it's always a good thing to check on water level in the bilge. Two things about swimming. Salt water pisses me off; I flail around hopelessly sometimes, trying to see. Thankfully, usually nobody is around or else they'd think there's a sick dolphin in the reach. Second, I can swim maybe 20m before needing to side stroke. Pathetic, I'm basically a shitty buoy. After, I even eat a complete breakfast before heading into work EARLY. How do you like them apples. Because I do...I try to eat one a day.